


Things that resemble love

by Ghraentseell



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Flowers, Getting Back Together, M/M, Shance Flower Exchange 2019, a mess, shance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 06:23:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18845440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghraentseell/pseuds/Ghraentseell
Summary: Lance and Shiro are together, but not together-together, you know?The distance in between them increase and Lance starst to think that maybe leaving wasn't a good idea after all.





	Things that resemble love

**Author's Note:**

> My gift to [macs](https://holydrawings.tumblr.com/)  
> I liked your first two prompts and I wanted to incorporate them buuuut it turned into this thing, so I can say I didn't achieve to do neither.  
> Despite that, I hope you find this entretaining to read.

Among the first memories that Shiro has of Lance, the ones where he smiles stand out from the rest.  
Wrinkles appear at the corner of his eyes and his iris shine blue from behind his short dark lashes. Lance always offers a genuine smile, and when he laughs he never holds back, sometimes even a pair of little dimples shows up, one on each cheek, barely noticeable.  
From Shiro's perspective, Lance is just a person worth admiring and as such Shiro just gets lost on him.  
“So? Are you gonna ask me out or what’s up with that look?”  
Shiro has been staring again but he knows Lance doesn’t really mind it, he's just messing with him and Shiro kind of like it when he does, because its funny for both of them, Lance says this type of thing just for the sake of getting a reaction out of him.  
“You noticed?” Shiro asks and for a second there Lance gets wary, Shiro usually changes subject when he tries to tease him with something so direct. But Lance quickly pulls back up his playful smile, “I mean, it's kind of obvious.”  
“Hey! I was trying my best at being subtle,” Shiro says, he was doing a good job at keeping himself collected until Lance took a step into his space. Lance loves the way Shiro blushes because is not something common on him to be caught with his guard down and Shiro has never shown a trace of being shy.  
Shiro Shouldn’t feel so nervous by Lance’s proximity but he can't keep his heartbeat from raising, there are just a few inches in between them, Lance's turning his head up and looking directly into Shiro's eyes.  
“Go on,” Lance insists but Shiro can't think of a good come back fast enough and ends up stammering, “Would- are- I-I am available. Always.”  
The beginning had been as simple as that, It used to be so easy to make Lance smile, but somewhere in between all those years Shiro ended up failing to be there for Lance.  
“So am I,” Lance smiles, so soft and sincere as usual.  
*  
There's a finite line that separates falling in love from falling apart, and that's where Lance always tough he was standing.  
Once he and Shiro start dating for real, Lance began to be tore by the idea of not being enough, Lance found himself unable to think that he deserved to be whit Shiro, from his point of view, Shiro was too kind, too good at everything he tried, too funny and handsome, completely out of his league, too much.  
At some point, Lance got used to the idea that they belonged together, that they could be happy because Shiro has the quality of making Lance believe even in the impossible.  
Lance doesn’t really remember how is that Shiro came into his life, he doesn't know the exact date when they saw each other for the first time, he doesn’t remember what his first impression of Shiro was, but he remembers that having fallen for him was so easy and it felt so natural, as if breathing. He remembers the exact moment he began wishing to be at his side, and it happened so quickly that he couldn’t stop even a second to really think about that implication and what it really meant to be in a relationship, the effort it required from each part.  
Lance has the tendency of spoiling everything for himself.  
Shiro had never reproached Lance’s decision of leaving without him, Lance told him he wanted to be alone for some time, that he needed to do things alone and Shiro had told Lance that he would wait for him all the time he needed. Actually, Lance doesn’t know what he had expected,.  
Maybe if he has said he needed some air and that he prefered to take it slower, if Lance has had faced Shiro and told him that he wasn’t sure about some things and what he was dealing with, Shiro would have said yes anyway.  
When Lance decided that they should take a break he made the mistake of thinking it has been a decision that they both had agreed because Lance thought that it was for the best.  
Lance ran away because he realised that with Shiro he had everything, because Shiro was willing to give Lance all he had, and Lance started to doubt if what he had to offer would be enough, Lance needed his love for Shiro to be bigger than his own fear and insecurities.  
He could have expected to lose contact from Shiro after that day, but it was Shiro after all, he couldn’t leave what they had to end just like that, so abruptly.  
Lance at least kept the courage to text him from time to time and Shiro just answered as usually and it was as tough Lance had never left.  
The lack of a real confrontation hadn’t mattered before, but it was now gaining on him, Lance had never missed someone as he missed Shiro.  
He loved Shiro more than anyone and Lance needed him more than anyone, but they ended up like this somehow and it was his fault.  
Lance is just the perfect epithet to such a catastrophe, he wants to be with Shiro but maybe Shiro is now happier without him, Lance wishes he could ask him and probably he could if only he wasn't trapped at this stupid airport, with a dead phone and an incredible amount of hope filling his heart because he has nothing else to hold on.  
*  
“You’re doing it again,” Pidge tells him for the third time in a row, he had been staring at the phone for too long. “At this point, I'm seriously considering that you're doing it on purpose.”

“Sorry, I was just thinking,”

“Right, so what is it this time?” the girl asks, to start some conversation, after some years she had learned to identify that helpless look on Shiro's eyes every time Lance crosses his mind.  
Shiro and Lance didn't talk to each other daily, as they used to, Shiro always had to remind himself that Lance would reach when he's ready.  
Shiro always had Lance on his thoughts, he was and always would be an important part of his life and he couldn't have got rid of him even if he wanted to, and Shiro knew that it happened the same to Lance.  
Sometimes he felt that he wrote to Lance as if they were still together and in some way they were, the never had that ‘we should break up' talk, neither had it been implied.  
Shiro felt that he needed to step back a little bit more as if showing too much interest would freak out Lance and the distance between would widen even farter.  
More than six months have passed since they have last been a couple in proper terms, and he misses how they interacted, how they used to talk at all times.  
Shiro and Lance were a couple for longer in comparison to the time that they had been friends, and that break they were taking seemed to be something healthy for them and unusually mature coming from them.  
“I fear I might upset him if I bring back the subject of seeing each other, although he's been less busy at his job lately,”  
“You know he would most likely say yes,” Pidge tells him. “You don't lose anything by giving it a shot, you two really need talk about some stuff, sort things out, and done, back to normal.”  
“The last thing he told me was that maybe we were meant for other things, for other people, and I'm stupid so I just agreed with him, but I can't think of a future where he's not by my side.”  
“If you’re able to tell me that, I'm sure you won't be having problems telling him. Explain to him that, he would listen,” she lets out a short laugh. “God, I honestly think that sometimes the only sound he hears is your voice.”  
*  
Lance had no plan this time other than the solid idea in his head that he had to return and fix things with Shiro, so he put those improvisation skills to work once his plane landed and got on a bus to get to the city.  
He had only travelled alone on two occasions, the first when he left from Cuba, the second when he left Shiro and both trips had been the worst thing he has ever done in his life, but today was specially being a nightmare.  
Maybe he should have called Shiro or just anyone to say he was going to visit when there was still some charge left on his phone, but he didn’t dear to dial anyone’s number.  
He was now standing in the middle of nowhere with no bag and just some change in his pocket, but at least he has gotten out of that damn airport.

He wakes up when his head hits the window with a sudden stop at the bus station, his hair is all flat form the side he rested against the crystal and his eyes are sore and a little bit red from crying all the way here.  
He saw an old couple at the gates of the airport and he started crying because even from the distance he could see how happy they were of seeing each other again. What if that wasn't Shiro's reaction? Maybe Lance should have let things settle for a little bit longer.  
At the station, he witnesses another reunion. A father waist with his kids, he carries a baby and to girls play at his side, one of them carries a bouquet of red flowers, but not any kind of flowers, this one is called amaryllis and he recognizes that type special kind, because out of all the types that exist they had to be the same ones Shiro gifted him year after year. Lance’s favourite flowers are lilies and Shiro mistake them since they look very alike and since then it became some kind of tradition to gift each other amaryllises during a special date.  
This kind of coincidences could only happen to Lance.

The man looks tired but when a woman with long silver hair approaches them, his face lits up with a tender smile, the girls runs at her and the man takes his time to go behind them, he doesn't want to wake the baby with a sudden movement but his eyes glimmer with excitement, Lance realises.  
It appears that love actually is all around.  
This really could have made a good Christmas story, Lance being the desperate man trying to return home on time and take a final chance with his true love. The only thing missing in the scene could be completed with Shiro appearing at the doors of the bus station, then Lance could have run to his arms and tell how sorry he was for not believing in them, for not believing on himself and dragging Shiro down alongside. Shiro would just grab his face and assure him that everything is going to be alright from now on and it would be true.  
But this is real life, Lance sighs and turns away from the image of the family, with the couple welcoming each other with a Kiss, if he keeps watching he would son start crying again.  
He had wanted to be as far as possible from home to stop himself from wanting to return, but it appears that the distance can’t do much when your heart is stubborn.  
When he looks at the family reunion again, the man handles the baby back to the woman and when she catches Lance staring at them, she offers him a sympathetic smile. The baby’s eyes open and not a single cry scapes, Lance takes that as a good omen.

He was afraid of seeing Shiro and he didn’t know why. No, he just didn't want to acknowledge the reason because it was there - at the back of his mind and somewhere deep in his heart.  
*  
Midsummer brings special memories, doesn't it?  
Lance couldn't let himself feel loved, he thought he didn't deserve it, that he hadn’t earned it and Lance had wanted to work on that by himself, and it hurt Shiro because he had wanted to be there for Lance, but he understood Lance’s reasons, being together while he was going through denial wasn't gonna do good to anyone.

This particular memory is not from an event you would describe as intimate. Lance shifts beside Shiro, he always gets sleepy towards the ending of a movie, the commercial echoes in the background with the name of the next show and movie, Lance’s face is being illuminated by the t.v, and patterns of red, pink and purple dance over his skin while the darkness of the room frames his body.  
One could have counted how many times the words ‘I love you,' crossed Shiro's head in the span of a heartbeat until he finally says it. He has this memory stuck on his mind not because it had been the first time he told Lance, but because he had never felt that the word was too short for all he had wanted to say.  
“I love you, too,” Lance mumbles back and his words blurry together in his raspy sleepy tone.  
Shiro still loves Lance, and Lance still loves Shiro but even now the word doesn’t seem to fit right, it doesn’t appear to be enough.

*  
Shiro wakes when the phone rings, he gets momentarily blinded by its light and he presses answer without looking at the caller.  
At the other side of the line, he hears his name from a voice too familiar but it can’t be him, maybe Shiro is still dreaming. When he looks at the screen, he finds an unknown number and with more confusion, he asks. “Lance?”  
“Hey, did I wake you? Sorry.” He mutters.  
“Everything is alright? Why are you calling from this number?”  
“I am…I am stupid and-“  
Lance doesn’t want to tell him about his trip, he doesn’t want to tell Shiro that he’s right outside his door and that he’s too afraid to knock.  
“And?” Shiro asks after the silence Lance has left.  
“I acted like a dick all this time, pushing you when you wanted to help me, even when I left you were still willing to do it and I don’t know how to thank you or to apologize.”  
“You don’t have to do neither,” Shiro assures him, “I don’t know, it has been rough not having you here, but you’re fine, aren’t you?”  
“Yeah, sorry again for bothering at this hour, I know this is not something to talk through the phone, but I need you to know that I made a mistake by doing things the way I did, and I’m just tired of running away, I had a future with you and I fucked it all up because I didn’t trust myself to make you happy, and there aren’t enough things I can say to fix this-“  
“I miss you,” Shiro interrupts and Lance stops talking.  
“I can't just be friends with you.” Shiro exhales. “I just know that I love you too much not to be by your side. And I really believe we can make things work this time, but if you don't want to try, that's fine I just want you to be happy.”  
“I always knew that there would be nobody else for me that wasn’t you and…I’m willing to try it again, I don’t care if we have to start over again, as long as you still want me.”  
“I’d like that.”  
Lance laughs with eyes not quite shut, loud as though he were putting all his heart in such a simple action and everything comes down to the present. 


End file.
